RS

MEMBER DIARY

Something changed in Republican primaries last time & this time….

If we look at the previous elections, we see that voters on either side have been looking for a change from the previous POTUS – be it policy issue or personal issue.

We got Reagan who articulated that he will save the country from a fiscal disaster caused by Carter….he got elected two times doing what he said he would do! George HW Bush would have lost since he called Reagan’s economic policy as “voodoo” economics & talked about moderate ideas ….luckily the challenger Dukakis was such a lame duck candidate & Bernard Shaw sank his campaign with one question! Clinton beat HW Bush because he came across as more centric & George HW Bush “flip flopped” on his tax pledge. Clinton moved to the center & with Newts help & brought some commonsense changes to government. GW Bush was elected for one reason – he could keep his pants on & for his image as a family man.

If we look at last election, republicans & independents were mad at GW Bush because of his spendthrift ways….all Republicans had to do was elect a guy that would have articulated fiscal discipline & had a recent record on that ….we had all moderates towards the end (McCain, Romney, Huckabee) & we lost the race since Obama “talked a good game of hope & change” & won easily. This time all republicans had to do was the same thing – get a decent fiscally conservative guy who had a decent record that can contrast himself with Obama! We screwed up again (Newt would have been OK in many respects but there were issues at play…as listed below)

I am jus thinking about what caused these changes & if it will continue?

1. Has the establishment become somehow more powerful? 2. Have the PACs changed the playing field so much that candidate with tons of money support (wall street, crony capitalists) can kill the other primary candidates very easily? 3. Are republican primaries held in blue states in the early stages of the primaries to favor moderate/liberals? 4. Has the conservative media been taken over by “RINOs” who constantly smear the conservative candidates? 5. Are republicans & conservatives in the media are afraid to vet the primary candidates thoroughly to protect their side in case that person becomes our nominee (seem to be the case for Romney – a cursory search on the net will bring how liberal he has been in MA) 6. Is the big money republican donors are all liberal/moderates & are pushing for the liberal/moderate governors on the rest of us? 7. Has the polarization between a republican & a democrat has become so great that we do not care how principled is our candidate as long as there is an R after the candidate? etc. etc…

My concern is how do we get out of this self destructive cycle? I see already people rooting for Chris Christie (many better conservative governors are available in the south & middle of the country – Walker, Jindal, Kasich etc.). Republican party is becoming just like the Democrat party with party leaders & others in DC & NY showing so much disdain towards the average republican who lives in the “fly over country”. I do not foresee this cycle changing in the near future!